2016 Summer September 12 Monday

Staying at a hotel that has a rate about what you pay for breakfast and the Internet at most hotels. Certainly by the time you pay for parking at many hotels it is less than the parking, breakfast and interest at most hotels. It is clean, the beds are comfortable, so we are glad to have discovered a real (and rare) bargain.

It is certainly not the most modern hotel room, but I would rather pay a reasonable rate than pay for a lot of amenities I don’t want or need. It includes internet and breakfast and parking, so it is a real bargain. (I may update that since I haven’t had the breakfast yet, but even if we go eat breakfast somewhere else, it is a real bargain)

Hotels, many of them the victim of “private equity” and hedge funds ripping them off, recently have increased rates to the point that Airbnb is increasingly a good alternative. The private equity funds buy the hotel stock, issue a bunch of junk debt, pay themselves a huge undeserved “dividend” and then take the company “public” again where it frequently goes bankrupt or a the very least struggles under the huge debt left. Should be illegal.

Weather was actually cold last night. Of course, I didn’t even think of bringing along a jacket etc. I will know better in the future! (Actually, Aliene did mention to me I should bring along a jacket, but…..:)

The local AAA team worn the first stage of their playoffs, which means they are the Champions of this division and will continue to pay for the championship. Not all that important in the overall scheme of things but it is nice.

We have watched most of them play and develop over the season so it is nice to see them advance to the final stage.

While I don’t pretend to understand it, after September 1, apparently Major League Baseball expands their roster to 40 players, so they call up many of the AAA players right at the time of the playoffs, which completely changes the team you watched all season.

Of course, you have to be glad for the players, since that is the reasons for the AAA league, but it is disappointing when you have watched a team all season and the best players suddenly disappear. Of course, it gives you a chance to see the best AA players who are called up to the AAA to replace the players called up to the Major League team!

Ate at a “local” restaurant last night (meaning it wasn’t a chain etc.). It was very nice and a different experience. Nothing agains chain restaurants, many of them do an excellent job also.

Visited with family members yesterday who came up early for Aunt Eleanor’s services. It gave us a chance to talk about past memories, and our memories of Aunt Eleanor and Uncle Wayne. It was nice to just relax and visit.

Read about out state Attorney General in the newspaper yesterday and how he takes a lot of trips and receives a lot of “contributions” from private interests who have business before his office. It was a shock to me to see how much money is given him and then he uses his office to directly benefit the people who “contribute” to him or pay him “fees” for speaking in vacation spots etc.

I wondered why he went off on some of the tangents he did (wasting substantial state money in the process), now I know why.

I guess in this case term limits are good, except that it seems the voters would vote him out after reading about how the “contributions” affected his official actions. Of course, I have to wonder why this position is even elected and put in into the position of taking money from private interests who contribute huge sums of money to influence him.